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BUSINESS AS USUAL?

1st November 1986
Page 34
Page 34, 1st November 1986 — BUSINESS AS USUAL?
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Deregulation is finally with us. Under post D-Day conditions, which vary from business-as-usual to near-chaos, CM has been finding out how some operators

are coping.

THE SOUTH

• Deregulation in the Home Counties got off to a similar start to deregulation in the Stock Exchange — no "big bang", however, just a little confusion in some areas as passengers got used to new route numbers and some different buses and operators.

D-day plus one seemed like any wet Monday morning. A brief CM whistle stop tour of towns outside Greater London showed that in general it was life as usual, despite the changes on the buses. The biggest problems appeared to be a lack of bus stop timetable information, particularly for services provided on behalf of the county councils.

In Epsom, Surrey National Bus Company subsidiary London Country South West had all its bus stop publicity in place before D-day. Independent Epsom Coaches, which now operates a commercial service as well as several routes for Surrey County Council did not, but seemed to overcome most problems with helpful drivers. It uses 12 metre coaches on local services and the lack of conventional destination displays could add to the confusion. One of the few instances of direct competition in the area is between London Buses and various London Country offshoots. In Epsom, on the busy Kingston corridor, London Buses are mounting a direct challenge for day-time traffic with two Leyland Nationals an hour, against London Country South West's three buses.

On D-day plus one, however, it all seemed very gentlemanly with no obvious racing between stops and passengers happy to get on which ever vehicle arrived at the stop first.

One problem facing many operators has been to get buses on the road quick enough for D-day. In Stevenage, Jubilee Coaches is operating Daimler Fleetlines hurriedly bought from West Midlands PTE, complete with West Midlands Travel advertisements, on its Hertfordshire-subsidised town circular service.

Other operators have buses, but have not yet had them tested or painted and are starting their services with coaches as a temporary measure.

One exception is Tillingbourne in Surrey. Having won its tender for a town service in Reigate which passes the former London Country head office, it has a brand new Iveco City Nippy midi in service, complete with a brand name, proper destination displays and all roadside publicity in place.

The other aspect of D-day concerns the changing status of municipal and PTE bus operations which now transfer to Companies' Act companies operating at arm's length from their controlling authorities.

Maidstone Borough Council chose D-day plus one to launch its new Boro-line company with a new livery. A band and celebrities including Stephen Lewis ('Blakey' in 'On the Buses') saw the operation on its way.

London Country North East has also been officially launched, with a new livery and image. It has met deregulation well with around 70% of its former network registered.

SCOTLAND

The Scottish Bus Group had offered to cut the number of services in Glasgow city centre — but the reply from Strathclyde Buses was: "The war goes on".

SBG executive director John Whittle offered to re-route 19 services from Jamaica St and Union St, and eight from Argyle St — on condition that his competitors do the same.

The SBG also offered to put "clippies" on another service to try to cut the time spent at bus stops, but Strathclyde Buses chief George Hall says the conditions imposed were unreasonable: "We have already cut our fleet of buses by 100 to help ease congestion."

Whittle says: "We will not do anything that will restrict the passenger's choice." Waugh said he could not comment on the SBG offer until he had studied it.

THE NORTH

Northumbria Motor Services is based at Jesmond, Newcastle, and has nine other depots, extending to the Scottish Border at Berwick operating 250 vehicles.

In Northumberland, the company has registered 79% of former "United" mileage, and 68% in Tyne and Wear. These in general do not include times when the services are unlikely to cover their costs — evenings, Sundays and holidays for example.


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